LMFAO - Zeus is a greed machine! I am equally interested in LordB's examples of 'good loot'. In Zeus TO, they are trying to get 2gc/1 iron bar... Some asking more than that... some went in the auction for more than 2.5:1; iron bars to iron ore is currently close to 4:1. The new colony system and the increased production rates have done that for the most part. Been a hilarious week, so far.Originally Posted by Bushybraw
“Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
We need a 10x buff now.
Still around from time to time.
I would settle for iron deposits to be 10x current amount.
You are all heart.
If something can go wrong, it will.
Ok will do my best to elaborate. Firstly do not look at the last week as to what steel will be worth. The idea of selling iron ore above 1 gc per would mean it is now more efficient to x4 buff it than anything else in game. As a result less gold chains will run (in the long term) which will decrease the supply of gold, which in theory will then increase its value versus everything else thus decreasing the price of iron again until an equilibrium is met. In short it is highly unlikely that the current backdrop sticks. So forget about price of iron/steel for now because its too soon to worry and if you can't tell I would be a huge seller at these price points.
Around the direct loot I am going to use best case scenario as examples (I know there will be sub optimal results) and I am going to use small colonies as the baseline example since they are most accessible. Let me say this IF you are taking over coal and hardwood prepare to be quickly out of business. (why I suggest those rewards be drastically incresead) But perspective on the matter, it only takes about 10 minutes of time (really less) to take an entire small colony from another player. If the rewards were say on level of an IOTP it would become the best way to farm in the game. So increasing direct rewards just doesn't work IMO.
That leaves with increasing the ticking rewards so again using an optimal amount, in theory if I have 6 colony slots I could have a total of 648 titanium ore every 6 hrs. So 2592 a day or 3888 with premium. Now my experience so far is over the week I have lost a total of 2 colonies and been attacked maybe 20 times. I am sure that will change in time. But that means that over a 5 day period I have barely had to replace colonies and increased my titanium ore by 19400.
How on earth can you say those rewards arn't worth the effort? And I am not even going into how to save troops to make it more viable. However I did just abandon a colony and retook a small colony. I tried not to be very effective and took it losing a total of 200 troops. To break it down 300 steel bars for the blockers. 300 steel bars for the melee. 750 bars for the archers. 900 for the cav. So 600 steel bars, 1650 iron bars. I am guranteed 300 titanium from this (I run premium) so on my server a coin value of about 1200. Even worst case scenario I am probably only losing about 1000-1500 in value.
Last edited by LordB; 12-01-14 at 07:35 am. Reason: additional info around losses
I don't understand you guys, you can't fix the problems you already have with the game, chat keeps going off and on, when sent an invite for adventure the advent won't open after accepting and the lag. Now you add PvP and the lag is ever worse, have to wait to upgrade buildings or take down things. We have people in the guild that pop in once a day to see if anything is fixed and leave because it is a waste of time now. Why not wait till no events were coming up to add all the new crap at least then it wouldn't mess with the events. I will be joining the people that log in once to see if anything is fixed and if not I will leave till the next day. Do us all a favor, fix the problems you have before changing or adding new things.
Iron will stay high as the sky on price as long as there is a shortage of it. Adding the pvp feature set heavy into iron production and at the same time speeding the consumption or iron by regular shops by cutting in half the time of production of weapons/smelts is the reason for iron crunch. After the first two weeks when production comes to its normal cycle things will ease up a bit. I just don't believe iron will ever go back to prices from the past.
Making our own weapons will drive demand no matter how many people will continue to do pvp and waste their resources for crappy rewards. There is simply way too much work to find (long process of 1 hr on regular geos), build, upgrade and buff the iron mines to keep the demand. I run 5 iron mines to keep bars flowing. At lev3 and 3x buffed they are still in red on 2 lev5 iron smelts. I will not build 16 iron mines just to mine some extra to sell. I assume most players also don't think spending 4 hours a day just to get mines going is worth their time. So, I think the iron crunch is going to stay for good.
The quick and easy solution to most of this mess would be making iron/steel and epic weapons less demanding in time and resources. That was given as an overall easy and painless fix to a lot of things the devs were trying to accomplish (testers assumed) by the changes to the game. O, well. BB knows better.
I am also watching how the shifts, crunches and choke points of resources are going to affect players 26-42. This is where the majority of pain is going to happen. At 26 your only decent source of granite for upgrades (unless you have rich guildies offering you free ls to BK/RB) was IOTP. But there is a very harsh difference between 750 granite (old loot) and 250 (new loot). Not to mention all the new units those players want to train are going to cost them quite a lot. Or they have to wait 2 weeks for their slow lev 2 steel sword maker to make enough weapons for 100S.
The lev 50ies complain about this and that... Imagine being lev 20ish now without gems, still leveling. Then you have something to complain about...
I need to know who I'm attacking. I need to take names!
Also endless iron mines...
Re-balance the PvP element to a sensible level, including copper ore/bars for the attack units. Or alternatively do away with the PvP weapon smith and unit and keep everything unified, simple, known....
The PvP update was much needed, the other changes like "hey its my bonus week let me suck your coal dry as I produce extra bars", well, was not.
It takes foresight, and actually engaging with the community to make any of this happen.
The OP made a remarkable about Runescape in his post. Classical example, I played for 7 years, yes 7. They ignored their player base, they tinkered with the combat system to try and compete with games like WoW. In the end the lost out big time.
Developers, I'll give you a cold hard truth. If player numbers aren't decreasing, be satisfied. There are that many games out on the market, players choose your game from a reason. It's not because you were the best, nor the most popular. It's because they liked your GAME MECHANICS.
I CAN NOT SAY THIS ENOUGH TO GAME DEVELOPERS.
If you game is broken, don't fix it. If your game numbers/profits are decreasing, have a look at forums and look at small things players are asking for you to implement. Take player polls like you do for guild market. Want PvP? What will the costs be? Here are the options, you decide! Want a new loot system so fix the endless loot sharing monstrosity this game has become, here our our potential sink holes for resources, do you players agree? Cast your vote! Let's make a forum topic for feedback!
This is why companies like BlueByte and Jagex will fall into oblivion. Take a leaf out of Runescapes (pre-EOC) book, and go from there.
All the best.
The other thing I forgot to mention in my post about pvp is just how borning it is compared to what it should be.
You quickly max out your colonies (for me took maybe 2 days) and then you just sit around waiting for someone to take 1 so you can spend 10 minutes taking another one back.
The mechanic just doesn't work. You need a mechanic where it is highly repeatable and that allows player created content. I think the system is a cute novelty but I dont think in its current form it will do anything for the game other than give a temporary blip while people come back and test and then leave.
To re-stress
1) tournaments
2) ladders
3) guild wars.
4) persistent pvp island where players can actually interact and customize so they feel a sense of ownership. From there a random attack method where the colony isn't kept by the attacking player just unharvested resources/rewards given for beating defenses. This would also give people something to grind over and new to upgrade.
Current system is just really a terrible mechanic after being cute for a day or two.
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